Pork pie hat
Initially an item of women’s wear, this accessory was identifiable through its shape, particularly the narrow brim which distinctively curled round towards the crown of the hat, which was flat, and usually made from straw or velvet in this period.
[3] Silent film actor Buster Keaton converted fedoras into straw boater-like felt pork pies by stiffening their brims with a dried sugar-water solution.
A porkpie hat was a trademark of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the World War II project that developed the atomic bomb.
[9] After the end of World War II the pork pie's broad popularity declined somewhat, though as a result of the zoot suit connection it continued its association with African American music culture, particularly jazz, blues, and ska.
In television between 1951 and 1955, Art Carney frequently wore one in his characterization of Ed Norton in The Honeymooners, and in Puerto Rico the actor Joaquín Monserrat, known as Pacheco, was the host of many children's 1950s TV shows and was known for his straw pork pie hat and bow tie—in this incarnation, the pork pie returned to its Buster Keaton style with rigidly flat brim and extremely low flat crown.
When migration to the United Kingdom increased following the end of the Second World War and government calls for post-war reconstruction (see Windrush generation, British Nationality Act[11]),[12] shared musical and style interests thereby influenced the appearance of garments such as the pork pie hat in the emergent youth mod and rave subculture.
[13] The porkpie hat enjoyed a slight resurgence in exposure and popularity after Gene Hackman's character Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle wore one in the 1971 film The French Connection.
